by Sarah Jeanne

It was the beginning of the end, literally. I stared back defiantly at the blood red fabric I had used for the past 2 years to try and disguise my situation. This curtain and I had reached our swan song, our last tango…. and I was on the losing end. I had used this curtain to cordon off my own space, my own little retreat. Yet for the last two weeks, it took on a rebellious nature and kept falling down, sometimes several times a day. “In the Name of Jesus- Stay UP!” (Yes, I actually commanded it in Jesus’ name. Almost on cue, it fell down immediately afterwards.) I felt a wave of hot tears betray my stubborn nature and stream down my face. The overwhelming feeling of being naked and exposed flooded my being as I looked up to Heaven to ask the inevitable, “Why, God?” The answer came at once in that marvelous still, small voice. “Sarah Jeanne, let the curtain go. I’m~RENTING~YOUR~VEIL!”

If you look up the word ‘veil’ in the Encarta World English Dictionary, you will find part of the definition to read this: something that acts like a curtain in hiding, disguising, or obscuring something else, or separating one thing from another. Little did I know how veiled I had been for most of my life. For most of my life, I have been known as something of a mess. And when I say mess, I mean a real mess: my rooms, offices, desks, lockers, closets, etc. I have never been known for my neat-streak.

Now before I get too in depth, let me admit something to you. This is not an easy thing to divulge. It has been my own private disgrace and it dates back to around age 6, when my father passed away. Whatever it is, I have dealt with it for the greater portion of my life. In the fourth grade, my teacher thought she would do me a favor by making me an example in front of the entire class. My desk, the messiest by far, was dumped out in front of everyone and I was made to pick it up and put it away neatly, even if it took me until after school to do it. Face crimson, I obeyed. It worked… for about 3 days. I am sure she thought me a hopeless case after that.

Being messy would be a major source of “What’s wrong with me?” from this point forward. I used it as an excuse to push people away from me. In some ridiculous way of thinking, it was my way of ensuring my privacy. With my room in the condition it was in, no one wanted to hang out with me, and I could hide in my own thoughts and feelings whenever I wanted to. I lived like a little rat, surrounded by things and boxes and an accumulation of junk: old receipts, ticket stubs, mementos of places and people I had experiences with but had now forgotten what they meant to me at one time. I would become so engrossed in numerous activities after school, after work, etc., that when it became necessary to clean, I would often fall into bed exhausted from doing everything else but. It was my own private hell, but one I was content to stay in for the time being.

From the ages of 21-27, I moved around the country. I had fallen away from the Catholic upbringing I once knew and was searching for myself out in the big, wide world. I moved across the country 3 different times: from Wisconsin to Colorado, from Colorado to Massachusetts and ultimately, from Massachusetts to California, where I now reside. Each time I moved, I seemed to accumulate even more than I had left behind. It was a sense of security for me to know I still had my grocery store card from Colorado, even though that particular chain of stores was not anywhere near Boston, and such things like that. I had no identity in Christ, so I struggled to hold onto anything that showed I was really living a life somewhere, even one I didn’t want to let anyone into fully.

Living like I did, of course, opens one up to a barrage of criticism and judgment from others. I became obsessed with apologizing for and joking about my mess even before someone was able to see it. I avoided socializing in my own home and never practiced hospitality. I became convinced I was worthless. For some reason, I could keep the common areas clean ~ cleaning up for others wasn’t a big deal. I would occasionally clean my friends’ homes as a gesture of love, but my own room was a different story. It was a spiritual nightmare for me.

Eventually, I also got involved in drugs, mainly due to my struggle with feelings of worthlessness and depression. This lifestyle went hand in hand with all the things I was struggling with in my messiness, especially hiding myself away. It became necessary for me to close myself off from the prying eyes of humanity because I was literally breaking the law. Common household objects now became safe places to stash the drugs and paraphernalia I so desperately wanted to hide. But in doing so, I became the biggest piece of paraphernalia I owned ~ a walking time- bomb waiting to be discovered and eventually arrested.

Even after I gave up drugs and chose God, I struggled with the feeling of needing to be hidden. I hadn’t been able to fully surrender my mess. Right after I committed my life to Christ in 2004, I had had enough. In desperation, I cried out to Him to help me be normal. I hated living like this but didn’t know how to change. I prayed fervently that He would make me a neater person and help me get rid of the double life I was leading. On the outside, most people had no clue about the mess I would go home to at night. I was able to handle myself just fine on the other side of the curtain.

For the last two years, I lived in an amazing Christian home. Still awash with clutter, I shared a downstairs room with one other girl, and in my cleverness, I divided my section off with these beautiful crimson floor- length curtains so that I could have some sort of privacy. Or so I thought. During the past year, I ended up sharing my room with 3 more girls, sometimes two of them at one time. Every time I would attempt to hide behind those curtains, God would send another sister to me and make me share my space, and my mess, with them. To say I was over- apologetic would be an understatement. I was downright embarrassed, uncomfortable, and frustrated…. with myself.

Before I chose God, I had always had my own room. Fiercely independent, I was able to provide my own rent, pay my own bills, etc. Working in the ministry, I have been called into a season of living completely by faith that He will provide whatever I need. So I found myself dependent on others and unable to walk away from this calling that I knew He had placed on my life. And now with the curtain falling down, I literally had no place to call my own. Extremely humbled, I finally obeyed the voice of God and willfully took the rest of the curtain down. It felt as if the very last piece of my old life and stubborn carnal mind were being taken down with it.

When you pray things like, “Whatever it takes, God!” or “Cleanse me, Lord! Take this iniquity away!”, be prepared to go through with some of the most intense testing fire you can imagine. Sometimes it takes us a few years before we can pray those prayers and truly mean them. God is God. He knows what we can handle and when we can handle it. For some reason, it took me three years to fully go through this process, but when my veil was finally rent, a true change took place. I am cleaner and neater than I have ever been before in my life! I am actually able to allow friends into my room and invite guests over for dinner, and I am finally living in the freedom I had prayed for so long ago. I no longer have to hide because I now have a true identity, one rooted in Him. I’ve discovered that sometimes God needs to rent the veil in order to let the Son shine through.

Sarah Jeanne is unit production team leader for Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks. She was one of the leaders in Italy for our 70mm film test shot, which was featured in the film “Audience of One”.

By Alexis & Paul Orth

I used to be the kid in church who never cussed. In high school, I didn’t drink, smoke, or sleep around, even though all of my friends did. I remember telling a visiting pastor that I didn’t have the problem of a past history; I planned on living clean and saving myself for God, until I got married. I accepted Christ into my heart as a four year old and always knew that nothing I did could not make God love me any more or any less.

In college, I remained clean & sober…… until my 18th birthday. My best friends both smoked and told me, “Oh, you gotta try a cigarette now, you’re 18.” I smoked my first cigarette without one cough and I knew, I KNEW, from that first one, that I was hooked. I loved smoking and in New York, did it just about everywhere. A few months later, my close circle of friends made a date with me to watch me get high for the first time. I knew that pot was not addictive, that it worked its way out of your system in about a month, and everyone said getting high was fun. Many of the people I really liked were total pot heads. I also knew that I couldn’t get more or less saved by smoking pot. Jesus wouldn’t love me less if I smoked. Bad things wouldn’t separate me from the love of God; I could still be a Christian and swear… and smoke cigarettes…and smoke pot…and drop acid… and drink… Well, by mid- college, I was pretty foul to be around. I swore all the time, I smoked everyday, and I smoked pot whenever I had it. I don’t remember when I began to drink, but I could binge drink with the best of them. My crowd was a fun party crowd and we didn’t care if we had to put our beer on credit cards or if we were hung over; we worked hard and that justified partying hard. Most of us were A & B students. Most of us came from loving families. We were graduating on time, most of us with honors.

I knew my parents couldn’t afford to send me for four years to this school I so loved, so I figured out how to do it in three. I worked very hard and I did crazy stuff like taking 28 credits in one semester. Finally, I graduated with a BA from a prestigious liberal arts school and I decided to keep the party going. I lived in LA for a time and fell in love with a very abusive man who loved drinking and smoking as much as I did. At the end of that 14 month marriage, I got out and recommitted to serving Christ. I went to church and loved God, but continued the party all the same. Every once in a while, drinking would affect my work–it was hard to substitute-teach when I was hung-over. I wasn’t as young as I used to be and the hangovers were worse and worse. I was still a hard worker and continued having multiple jobs and multiple vices. I wasn’t an alcoholic, I was a drunk–alcoholics went to meetings! I still justified my party lifestyle by saying God loved me no matter what. And He did. I talked to my friends about the love of God with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Fewer and fewer people knew I was a Christian.

One day I looked up and realized I had zero Christian friends. I was commuting to church because I couldn’t find one with people my age in my area. I asked the little old church ladies to pray for me to find some Christian friends. I asked God to send me a friend who loved Him just like I did. Two weeks after that, I met my soul mate, Paul James Orth. He smoked like me, drank like me, loved God like me… We fell in love so fast! Now, we always thought that Paul had it more together than I did, because he only drank on the weekends ( except for summer time), and smoked way less pot, and even less cigarettes… so why was it that in a 10 year period, he got 3 DUI’s? Well, the last one really threw us for a loop. We had the scary realization that if Paul got another DUI, it was a mandatory six months in jail. We knew change was on the horizon–but that didn’t mean we would go easy!

We had been living together for about a year. We thought things were good. We were really in love and in the back of our minds, we knew we had to find a church home. We had plans to get married and we worked hard. Work became really tough for me and the way I chose to unwind everyday was a large 40 ounces of malt liquor after work. Still a pot head. Still smoking like chimneys….good thing God found us! A friend told me about this church in San Francisco and begged me to go many times. I put it off for months. The first time Paul and I went, we knew that we were home. This was a church where they let you dance during worship. This place wasn’t all ritualistic but was so focused on just loving Jesus, just doing what God said to do. Standing in that church, I prayed , “God, is this really real? Are these people for real? Is all this love real?” I looked up and saw that the church had writing on the front wall, in big block letters: “SURELY THE LORD IS IN THIS PLACE”. I cried with relief. God was here. He knew that even if He had to write it on the wall for me to believe, He would. I was still gonna drink and party, but at last, we had found a church home.

About a month before, Paul and I had quit smoking cigarettes. We had each decided it was just time. We went to church and I found out that the only hour of the day when I didn’t want, crave, fiend for a cigarette was the hour I spent worshiping & singing songs to God. Paul had quit drinking in all of the DUI mess. When I quit cigarettes, I had to quit beer, coffee, pot, and anything else that made me want to smoke. At least for that time. We slowly made our way out of addiction. After I made it through the ‘clawing my face off’ part of quitting cigarettes, I resumed drinking and smoking pot. Sometime during the summer of that year, I had begun to get tired of getting high all the time. I was just tired of it. It was a lot of work and money to accquire pot and I was tired of that too. I was tired of the adrenaline rush when getting pulled over, knowing I most likely had a pipe and pot floating around somewhere. I had always justified my pot smoking because I had chronic nausea; I had thrown up in a car so many times during my life! Well, when I tapered off of pot, none of my chronic nausea symptoms came back. I tell my friends I accidentally quit smoking pot; I didn’t even really mean to, I just did it. Breaking the power of the addiction of cigarettes broke a lot more than just cigarettes. I had always maintained that I would be one of those people who smoked pot until they were eighty, and then… just like that, I wasn’t getting high anymore.

Paul was stronger and stronger in his resolve to stay sober. I was not. I still wanted to drink. I had a friend tell me, “You’re drunk every time I see you. What’s so bad in your life that you have to drink all of the time?” This question haunted me. For the first time in my whole life, I looked at how completely overwhelmed I let myself become on a regular basis. For the first time, I admitted to myself that alcohol was an escape for me and not just a way to have fun. I decided to fast beer for forty days, just to see if I could. I did it successfully. I I knew my family was tired of my drinking. My mom told my sister and brother-in-law to stop drinking with me and they did. I don’t think they knew how much that would help me change my life. I was so embarrassed about how much I drank, how much I loved to be drunk. I did another 40 day fast again, just to make sure I really wasn’t an alcohlic, just to prove to myself I could stop.

At the end of this fast, God had a message for me. He told me, “I can use you if you’re sober.” For me, my party lifestyle had made me really useless to God in many situations. I hadn’t ever thought about it like that. Sure, I was a Christian even when I was drunk off my face, but I wanted to be used by God. I loved being a useful human being, not just a waste of life. I wanted to know Him more. I wanted to seek His face. I went to a friend’s birthday and got tipsy. I went to church the next morning just a little bit hung over and I thought to myself, ‘I don’t ever want to be hungover again.’ I stopped drinking completely from that point on.

We were falling deeply in love with God now, putting Him first in our marriage, living for His love, His words, His power. We knew we were saved and were ready to tell the world. We decided to get baptized and invite all of our partying friends to church. We wanted to show them what we had found in Christ; that Jesus’ way was the way we were doing things now. None of them came. I still have friends that just laugh like crazy when I tell them I’m a Christian.

I can’t really explain how I fell so deeply into this overwhelming nine year party with myself. I’m just glad my father in heaven never stopped calling to my husband and me. I just hope I can be a witness of Christ’s love to my friends who still party. I will never condemn them, or anything they do, or anyone who drinks or smokes. I never want them to feel like they can’t come to me. I just want them to feel Christ’s love from me, not the devil’s shame. I am a mighty warrior now, I am strong, I have a husband who serves God, and children who do as well. This is the life for me. Thank You God, for never giving up on us!

Alexis Orth is the team leader of prop design for WYSIWYG’s next feature film “Gravity.”

by Stephanie Henriquez

I wish there were a way to make someone feel what I feel… like if there were a sticker on this page that said, “scratch here to feel happy”. Many think that true happiness can not be reached. Well, let me tell you how out-of-this-world happy God has made me.

I used to think I was the kind of person who looked at life ‘realistically’. I grew up being taught that life was a struggle, that things and people would always fail you. That, yes, there were happy moments but they were always followed by hurts, letdowns, and disappointments. Being taught and shown this as a little girl, I grew up thinking it was true.

It’s funny how God completely changes your way of thinking. I started going to Voice of Pentecost Church and little by little, God started changing the way I looked at life. I would see so many people going through really hard trials and would think, “Man! How can they be happy, dancing, and praising God, knowing that they just lost their house, their car, or their job, claiming that God had a greater blessing in store…if they just obey Him?” Immediately, my ‘realistic’ way of thinking would kick in; why didn’t they just work harder to get things for themselves instead of waiting on God to do it for them? I even became angry with my friends for thinking the way they did. I felt like they were living in a fantasy land where everything was ‘peachy-keen’ and nothing ever went wrong.

Then one day, I had a very loooong conversation with one of them and I began to tell him how unrealistic he was being. Life wasn’t all about being happy. I told him that he had to work harder to gain everything he wanted in life; that nothing is just given to him by praying and waiting on the Lord! Life is full of disappointments and you can never be truly happy! He sat there listening then said, “Stephanie, that’s not how our God is.” I suddenly realized he was right.

From that moment, my life changed… God started working within me and I found truth despite all the lies the devil had tried to use to blind me.

I realized that, yes, there are trials and tribulations but they are not there to make you miserable or unhappy. They’re there to make you stronger, to lift you up. I realized that in praising Him with all that was in me, just as I had seen others do, I would find happiness! All of the devil’s lies had made me into this cynical person who looked at life with bitterness and anger, never expecting anything good or anything to make me happy. I now realize that with my Lord, I am capable of anything and everything He has called me to do, no matter how big, small, or crazy. No matter how hard or testing my trial may be, I find true happiness in forgetting the world and just falling in love with my Jesus!

Stephanie Henriquez is a volunteer at Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks.

By Richard Gazowsky

A while ago I was in Germany speaking with the former president of General Motors. He commented to me about how the German people love speed. He said that the “last piece of freedom” in Germany was the Autobaun. His words made chill bumps run down my back. Soon my wife and I hopped into his 700 series BMW and took a nice ride at speeds close to 200 miles an hour. Wow! Wow! Wow! I thoroughly enjoyed the ride while my wife was cringing in the back seat for every second of that high - speed excursion. The driver was taking us to a conference where I was to speak and when I got out of the car I knew that the Lord had changed my sermon topic to, “God loves speed”.

Have you ever felt that too many conservative thinking people surrounded you? I am not talking politics here. I sometimes think that too many Christians are like insurance agents. Everything that they do or think is based on caution and safety. But safety for what? What are we trying to keep safe? I’m embarrassed to say that the answer to this question is usually that we are trying to protect our reputation. Didn’t Jesus make himself of no reputation? What right do I have to be cautious for the purpose of protecting my reputation?

When it comes to the subject of raw speed look how God looks at it. In the book of Revelation the Lord said, “I would that you were either hot or cold but because you are luke warm I will vomit you out of my mouth.” Tell me are those razor- cutting words that slice through all of your excuses for wanting to stay just below the speed limit. This is why I love God so much. He is so cool and He really loves speed.

Look at a few examples of this in Christianity. It is quite amazing how fast and trusting God is:

In the Book of Acts 3,000 people were saved in one day and they all were baptized that same day. If this was today’s church all of those new converts would have been sent to a year long new converts course so that they would have an intellectual understanding of what they were going to commit to. If those new converts would have been told the price that baptism would cost them in the future I doubt whether any of them would have made it through the course. Think about it, how would you respond to being told that you are going to be whipped, beat by the Roman government, thrown into prison, fed to lions and pretty much kicked out of all the fun stuff in life? So the commitment to serving God had to be fast and quick. Amazingly, all of the people who had committed to being saved made it through the trials. We recently had a baptismal service outside of our church using a portable swimming pool. Two guys were standing beside the pool in their suits and asked, “Can we be baptized too?” Of course we said yes so they climbed into the pool with their suits and ties on and were baptized immediately. I was questioned by one of my minister friends, “Richard, how can you do that so quick without making sure that they understood the full concept.” I said, “Are you serious? Where did you get that salvation comes through intellectual understanding? No one on earth completely understands how salvation works. Sure, the broad-brush concept is pretty easy. Your sins are washed away by the blood of Jesus, right? So what more is there to it? Not too much when you think about it. At that point you either do it or you don’t do it. Jesus said to Nicodemus, ‘You try to complicate the issue by your questions when the truth is just simple’.” (that is my paraphrased version from the Message Bible)

Another example comes when having to make major decisions. Today most decisions are made by a committee and involve a long democratic process. It is never that way with God. It is always sudden death. I mean it is do or die. When you are making a corporate decision caution tries to influence you to study all the worse case scenarios but if you look in the scriptures every major decision was made with amazing speed and accuracy just by the will of God. Of course, these biblical situations were extremely dangerous. They involved no insurance policies or backup plan. Rather, it was do it or die. Look at Moses standing at the edge of the Red Sea. He stood there looking at a canyon of ice frozen by the breath of God and a small pathway of dry ground leading through the depths of the Red Sea. It is estimated that the Red Sea was 850 feet deep at the main crossing point. Moses had two choices. He could either stand and be killed by the Egyptians or walk through the canyon of water that was once the Red Sea. He chose to walk the canyon with very little time to make it across.

What amazes me about God’s love of speed is how He commands us to do radical things in a short amount of time. I am still currently under this kind of command. Believe me it is crazy but it is wonderful. A friend of mine in Sweden once had God shorten his journey by three hours in his car. They have never figured out where the time went. I have not experienced anything that phenomenal but I have seen God take a project that would take a month and have it be completed in three days. I believe this phenomenon happens only when we are flowing in the river of God. This is the place that I really want to be.

Currently right now my daughter Rocki is scoring the first symphonic piece for our movie, “Gravity”. I believe today that she just hit that high-speed lane where the spirit flows and things pour out of you like a river. I pray that each one of you can also find that river because that is where you experience God’s speed. Remember, the river was made for you. It is just your size and as long as your are in it you will be in His will.

Richard Gazowsky pastors a church in San Francisco called The Voice of Pentecost, and is also president of Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks. He has directed the films, “Guardians” and “The Roman Trilogy.”

by Bethany Beebe

I think all of us have at some time, in some way, shape or form placed walls around ourselves to keep ourselves protected. We think at the time it is the right thing to do. I mean, why wouldn’t it be. It keeps us safe and unharmed. It makes it so we no longer have to worry about being hurt again or feeling that fear or whatever emotion we didn’t like that made us build the wall in the first place. It’s a totally natural response. (Yes, there is a ‘but’ coming.) But it also keeps us from feeling other things, such as love.

I became a master wall-builder. I think the walls I had built around my heart were thicker than the walls of Jericho. And they worked; I kept myself safe from ever being hurt or scared. You see, I thought I had the best excuse in the world for building walls.

I grew up in a very small town. We were comfortable with leaving the car doors unlocked when we went into stores. Sometimes we would even leave the car running while we quickly ran in to buy milk and it would still be sitting there when we came out. I don’t remember my parents ever locking the door to our house because we felt secure. Things in our town were safe.

So it was really nothing to say that I wanted to stay in the car and play with the new toy I has just gotten while my mom ran into the bank. I was only six or maybe younger, I really can’t remember, and she parked so she could see me. The last thing on anyone’s mind was that a stranger might come to the van.

I don’t really remember much, only that I was sitting in the front seat playing with the toy when the driver’s side door opened. I thought it was my mom so I was horrified to look up and see a strange man. He asked me if I wanted something, I think it was some kind of candy or some other treat. At this point I felt something was wrong. I just knew it was. I was a shy kid to start with but I had never really had a fear of people. This man scared me. He scared me more than I think I had ever been scared before. My only response to this was to shake my head and not talk to him.

He closed the door and left. For a moment I was relieved but then he opened the door again. This time he asked if I wanted something else. I don’t think I responded at all this time, I just started crying. He shut the door again. I don’t know why, but I got up and locked all the doors except the one he kept opening because I thought he would grab my arm and pull me out of the van. Then I jumped behind the back seat and hid.

I know it sounds funny but it was a good thing I didn’t try to lock that door because he was standing right there and opened it again, and this time he sounded more desperate. He started to rattle off a lot of things to try and get me to the front of the van. Then everything went quiet.

The next thing I knew my mom was getting in the van. She could hear me crying from the back of the van and asked me what was wrong. At the sound of her voice I started crying even harder. I was so relieved that the man was gone. I tried to get out what had happened in between the loud sobs and the deep breaths. Somehow through my stammering she got the picture and she was able to see what the man’s truck looked like before he left the plaza.

We went to the police and my mom told them what kind of truck she saw and I told them what he looked like. A few weeks later they caught the man and saved another child from being taken.

Needless to say, I think this was a very good reason to build a wall. I didn’t want anyone whom I didn’t know well to get close to me. Living in Vermont made that rather easy because we naturally have a three-foot ‘bubble’ around us. You get any closer than three feet, we step back. Mine, however, was a little larger, very selective, and I would only let those I felt really comfortable with into the bubble.

This bubble remained until it hit me, “Hey look, boys are cute”. This made that part of my life really hard. I mean really hard. I put that wall up so that no man could scare me like that again, and here I was getting crushes on people I was once afraid of. But all through high school I kept boys at a distance, just to be safe.

Then I went to college, a Christian college. These boys were friendly and safe and a few became really good friends. Then I let myself slip and the wall came down a little and I let myself like one guy too much. I opened up to him more than I had any other guy. I thought and prayed that he would be the one; until I saw him look at another girl in a way he had never looked at me. The little part of my heart that I had let show shattered into a million pieces. So I built a thicker wall. This time I was determined not to let myself bring it down again. I did a very good job, until…….

I came to work at this really crazy place (WYSIWYG) where they do all these really crazy things like hug you when they see you and tell you that they love you and so on. I fought it for a long time. I gave halfhearted hugs and mumbled stuff back when they said they loved me, but I was determined not to let them break through my wall.

But slowly, brick by brick, the walls started to crumble. The constant barrage of hugs and complements broke it from the bottom up. They chipped away at the foundation, breaking down all the things that were supporting my walls.

Then about a year ago, God hit me with a realization. It is okay to be hurt. It doesn’t feel good but it is okay. He took the stripes on His back to heal my wounds ~ even the emotional wounds. I know that it will be okay to open my heart to people now. I will not fear getting hurt because God will give me grace and strength. At the risk of sounding very cliché, I will survive.

My walls are down and yeah, I have been hurt but what I gained was way better than keeping myself safe. I gained the ability to receive love, and better yet, return it.

Bethany Beebe has worked with Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks in set production and prop-making.
She currently is working with Final Cut Pro, editing a DVD series.

by Alexis Orth

My sister told me, “If you were only dating this guy and not married to him, you’d've dumped him by now.” I’m pretty sure I cried my eyes out at least every other day during my first marriage, at the age of 21. That 14 month period was the hardest time of my life. I remember telling God at the beginning of the whole mess, “God, I don’t want to hear what you have to say about this. I’m doing this my way.” I remember my mom’s tearful look as she said, “He’s not even a Christian.” And my hateful (and not so truthful) reply of, “Well, he’s working on it.”

We got married after 3 months of dating. We worked at the same job and were going to be sent out to Vegas for a couple of weeks. We decided late one night that we would get married when we got there. I couldn’t keep it from my family and even though they knew what horror I was potentially opening myself up to, they supported me and asked me to consider having a big wedding in my hometown. Long story short: great wedding, lots of friends & love, terrible marriage, no friends & abuse.

I really wasn’t able to make friends after I got married because anyone I would look at or talk to became the subject of our blowout fight. I learned to walk with my head up but my eyes down. Even as a passenger in the car, I had to keep my eyes on myself or the dash. We’d fight for days because of his jealous mind. Holes began to appear in our thin apartment walls. But after the screaming, he was really good at saying ’sorry’ and I was really good at crying in a fetal position and accepting his apologies.

I looked in the mirror and saw the truth–I had given all control to him, his cocaine, my cigarettes, LSD, drinking, pot… these were the rudders that steered us from day to day. He threatened to crash the car with us in it because he said I was cheating on him. He would examine my grocery receipts for the time and if he thought I had taken too long, he said I was cheating on him. He would tear things off the walls because I was cheating. He broke the shower door with me in the shower because I was cheating.

He had to drink more, smoke more, snort more, all because he said I was cheating. He’d examine my clothes, my body, everything, because he said I was cheating. The day before my birthday, while I was at work, he took the credit card to a strip club and put $400 worth of cocaine on it. I saw the receipt! We had the police called on us twice because of fights in our apartment. The cops made sure I wasn’t being beaten and had to leave without really helping because I would tell them to go, saying that we were fine. Our neighbors in the complex made sad faces, pitying me, and I always turned away, too embarrassed to say ‘help me’.

He would not work after our job ended. He would not let anyone in too close to us. He would yell at me for days and I just kept shrinking back. Even when I started going to church again, he would pick me up and drop me off and we would fight because he said I was cheating.

Is it pretty clear that I’m telling the G rated version of this adventure? I hope it’s also clear that I never cheated. I really loved that man. Crazy, right? But I really did, certainly enough not to cheat on him.

Church was the only thing I did that I said to myself was worth the fight I would endure. Finally, as I listened to the music, peace would come into the sanctuary and into my heart. I didn’t dare make friends there. In fact, I never even knew anyone’s name but I did come to my Father’s house and worship, listen to sermons, and got spiritually fed after starving myself for so long. God never threw in my face that I had been away, never threw in my face that I had chosen to serve my husband over Him. He never told me I couldn’t come to Him because I had worshiped my husband instead of Him. God just loved me when I looked to Him. He never yelled at me. Even though I had given everything that was rightfully God’s over to a man, God didn’t point out my faults. He didn’t step back from me when I came close. He called me! He actually called me! He reminded me that I was His child, no matter what. He reminded me that someone was praying for me. Can you believe it? I told God I didn’t care what He thought, and He told me I love you!

He loved me. He loved me. My husband didn’t. It was hard to admit.

If you’ve ever been through this, you know that your family and friends take a big step back from you. When I said ‘yes’ to abuse, it was too painful for everyone who really loved me to watch. It’s too much to see your daughter, your sister, your friend cry that much, be yelled at, shut herself off from everything except the abuse. Don’t get me wrong; my family was great. They accepted him with smiles and love, they celebrated birthdays, Christmas, Easter, they told him they loved him. They did everything to support us in our marriage. My sister was my biggest help. But when the party’s over, when just the two of you go back to that empty house, that’s when the screaming begins all over again. I felt so embarrassed to tell my family, my oldest friends what was going on. I couldn’t let them know the truth and I couldn’t be close to them.

After the biggest fight we ever had, completely loaded, but scared into sober thinking, I ran out from the house. I left because he told me for the first time, “I want to hit you.” I didn’t take anything, I just ran. He started circling the block in our car. I called 911 from a pay phone, told them I was being chased, and told them I was running to my grandma’s house. I hung up and kept running. I made it to Grandma’s, told her the truth for the first time in a long time and she and my aunt calmed me down. I’m sure one of them called the police when he roared up into the driveway. He was screaming on the front lawn and the cops came and took him. I remember yelling at him, “Tell them you’re CRAZY!” So scared, so angry. They told me they’d have to let him go after 14 hours and boy, that was 14 hours of pure rest for me, more than I had gotten in a long time. He came to my grandma’s after being released and told me that if I didn’t give him his ring back, I’d never see him again (I had taken it earlier so that he wouldn’t pawn it). And I loved him still. I gave him that ring and actually feared as he drove off that it was over! We decided over the phone to separate for a few weeks. I finally let my family and close friends in again. With the help of my best friend since 6th grade and my dad, I moved out of the apartment. All I remember is how nice they were to me after I had been stupid for so long. They never threw in my face that I needed therapy, that I was now a statistic, that I had let him…; they were simply funny and kind and helped me leave.

I moved back to my hometown and started to see a Christian counselor. I was so unsure; I didn’t know whether to stay married or separated or divorced… She made it plain and said, “Well, if you decide to keep being abused then you’ll stay in your marriage. If you decide to stop being abused, you’ll get out.” That was it. That was the revelation I needed. I got out. I went back to my hometown church, and God, again, was gracious and welcomed me. He really loved me. I began the slow painful process of apologizing to my friends and family for all the lies and pain. I began to get myself and my life back. I began the metamorphosis from the mouse I had become back into the victorious child of God I am. I stepped out of the hardest time of my life. God had kept me safe through the circumstances I put myself into and made sure I made it out alive. It’s ten years later and I am now married to an awesome Christian man who loves God just as I do. He is my best friend. We each put God first in our marriage. I’m free from cigarettes, pot, acid, abuse & more. I have even moved to the place of healing where I have really, truly forgiven myself and my ex-husband. I no longer fear him coming out of the shadows. What a relief! I have gone from night to day. I have told the Lord, “Your way, not mine.” I am saved!

Alexis Orth is the team leader of prop design for WYSIWYG’s next feature film “Gravity.”

by Sarah Mattioli

When I was a child, one of my favorite games to play was Hiding Place. To play this game, all that I needed was a blanket or covering of some kind and a wild, vivid imagination. I would playfully put the covers over my head and put my arms or feet up to make the space bigger while pretending I was having the time of my life. I would laugh and shout like I was at the most bumpin’ party of the year. One of my favorite things about this game was that I was able to play alone or with my siblings or friends. If others were around, I would start off in my little shelter by myself and eventually let everyone else in. Whoever was within hearing range of my elaborate celebratory noises wanted to join me in my shelter. Now, as an adult, I still make time to run away to my hiding place to spend time with my Jesus. Like my childhood game, I still let others in only after I have spent some quality time alone with the Lord.

King David, in the scriptures, used words such as refuge, shelter, hiding place, shield, tower, and fortress to describe the Lord. I believe David, in times of distress, found the Lord to be a hiding place both spiritually and physically. In Psalm 32:7, he says, “You are a hiding place for me; You Lord preserve me from trouble. You fill my heart with songs and shouts of deliverance.” I can picture David running for his life from Saul’s army, crying out to the Lord his God for help. At times, the Lord’s answer came in the form of providing him shelter and leading him to places where he was hidden from enemy eyes. I often hum this song or meditate on this passage when I feel uncomfortable. The most common time I use it is when men are checking me out in a way that makes me feel like I want to be invisible. My God loves to show up and hide me in the shadow of His glorious wings when I need it, whether in distress or even at times when I am content.

The Lord was a physical shield for me years ago when I had no escape. I was locked in a psychiatric ward of a hospital years ago when I needed to rely on this passage or be beaten up by a disturbed man. I walked up to a group of patients hanging out in a room that was out of view from the nurses’ station when I saw an unjust sight. My roommate was a young girl who had never been in a place like this before. As I walked over to the group, I noticed that she was tightly clenching her eyes shut with a look of disgust on her face as another male patient grabbed at her while kissing her cheek. When I asked her if she wanted him kissing her, she let out a soft “no.” “Then stop it!”, I yelled at the man. He became enraged and started to charge at me with hate in his eyes and obscenities coming out of his mouth. Instead of fighting back, as he was much bigger than I was and I no longer used violence to defend myself, I threw my arms up to cover my face and started to pray in tongues in the name of Jesus. With his eyes raging, he tried to hit and kick me but could not touch me.

The best way I can describe it is that it was as if I had an invisible force field up right between this man and me. After he tried screaming as he pounded the air, suddenly, it was as if the fear of the Lord came upon him and he backed away. I think he was confused by the event and yet the evil forces driving him realized that I was the real deal. Saved by my shield and strong tower, Jesus! Colossions 3:3 says it like this, ” For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Jesus himself walked through the middle of an angry mob who wanted to throw him off of a cliff. The Holy Spirit made him invisible and untouchable, confusing His enemies because it was not yet His time.

Hide and seek is another classic game that I still find joy in playing in my late twenties. My best hiding place when I was young was a cabinet across from the bathroom. It had a small shelf that was hidden high above the other shelves. As a child, I was small enough to squeeze into it and because I loved to climb, it was a fun place to hide. The first time I discovered this spot, no one could find me! I had to come out and reveal where I was because it was such a secret and unlikely place. Hide and seek was originally Papa God’s game. He speaks of it in Jeremiah 29:1: “For I know the thoughts I have for you says Adonai the Lord, plans of good and not of evil; to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go to pray to Me and I will listen to you. When you seek Me, you will find Me when you search with all your heart.”

Searching for the Lord with all of my heart has lead me to find Him at WYSIWYG in the beautiful city of San Francisco. I have found Him in the children I care for and in every staff, or I should say family, member I have been blessed to work with. I have found Him hiking up the hills of San Francisco to watch the sunset. I find Him before I even begin the hike up the hill, during the climb up as I push myself to get all the way to the top, and again when I get to rest at the top enjoying His messages to me in His creation. No one can find me like the Holy Spirit can when I’m hiding from people or situations. Praise Papa that He is the best hiding place when I am surrounded by enemies. God is so fun that even when I am hiding in Him, I find more of His goodness in the hiding place! There really is no one like our God in the heavens or on the earth.

Sarah Mattioli is a new intern with Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks and is now working in childcare.

By Titus Watts

As the crowds dwindled and the last of the passengers strolled arm and arm with their loved ones, my eyes studied the desolate luggage carousel making its never ending rounds. My heart began to pound rhythmically in my chest and I held my breath as I heard those six words that no cameraman EVER wants to hear: “We lost your camera, Mr. Watts…and it could be anywhere in Europe right now”.

Haunted by my careless decision to put our ONLY movie camera into “check-in baggage” and not “carry-on”, I felt paralyzed; I had squandered our only chance of getting the final shot we needed to finish our movie, “The Roman Trilogy”. We only had 18 hours on the island of Malta to film a sunset and a sunrise and our camera was somewhere, anywhere, but not in my possession.

Three days before we left the USA on our trip, we felt a word from God to add the Republic of Malta to our very full itinerary. Our worldwide search for ruins that resembled Ancient Rome had lead us to that island. In a miraculous turn of events, my wife Angela was able to secure two first class, roundtrip plane tickets for our director, Richard Gazowsky, and myself to Malta from Rome for only $1.50 each. You read that right, a BUCK FIFTY each per ticket. But we had less than 24 hours on the Island to get the wrap-around shots we needed.

Determined not to lose this battle, Richard and I reviewed the miracles that had brought us to this unique place. The buck fifty plane tickets, the paid-in-full location trip, the meeting we’d had in London just days before regarding the future of our 70mm camera innovation. So many miraculous things had already happened on this trip and even though our only camera was lost, surely God would not bring us to this little island in the middle of the ocean just to send us home again with nothing to show for it. What was the answer, God? Surely He had a plan and we had to run the race and finish our course. Like the Apostle Paul who was shipwrecked on this very island, we were determined to fight the good fight, run the race, and not lose the faith.

This very goal drove Richard and me out of the airport in search of a camera with which to film. As we meandered through the pot-holed, dusty streets of Valletta, we looked for anything that might lead us to a film camera. We were on a great adventure, our adrenaline pumping, knowing the clock was ticking. Richard led the way as to where we would go and our first stop was inquiring at a gas station, then on to a car battery store. We figured that since cameras need batteries, a battery store might lead us to our BIG FIND. To our amazement, the store clerk, in his broken English, pointed to a huge, shabby warehouse right across the street which housed the island’s largest television station. Like greased lightening, Richard ran across the street busting the doors wide open while I peeled out, dodged parked cars and one-way streets and finally parked the car.

As I entered the station, I saw Richard in his element. Within five minutes we were in the producer’s office explaining our journey and insisting that we must have a camera within four hours to get the sunset shot. Amazingly, the producer cut his work short to meet with us and immediately got on board. The momentum was building, our team was growing; now all we needed was a camera. There was only one man on the island who had what we needed and the producer nervously insisted that Richard be the one to make the call.

“NO WAY! I won’t do it and I don’t like Christians”, he yelled in his harsh German accent. With a few heated words here and there, he also said he needed one week to prepare for our shoot, secure his team, the location, and prepping the camera. Knowing this man, Mr. Jens Klein, was the only person who had a camera capable of getting the right shot, Richard was determined to get a green light from him. Jens was the BEST cinematographer on Malta, perhaps the best in Europe, filming commercials and big budget movies in Malta. Here we were, a Pastor and his cameraman nephew pushing a man of Jens’ stature to his limit. Booked for months, God cleared his schedule and after a heated conversation, Richard with his tenacious go-to-it-ness, got Jens to finally agree. The heavenly host of angels started to do show off their stuff!

Like a red bullet, our dented, scratched, broken tail lighted vehicle with its black soiled interior, darted to the other side of the island in record time; narrowly avoiding other cars on the dirty, winding roads. It was like someone dumped the Sahara dessert on the Autobahn and threw a mountainous roller coaster ride smack dab in the middle. The transportation adventure made the famed Dakar Race in Africa look like the Autopia ride at Disneyland.

We approached the charming fishing village and within minutes we were making our way up a flight of stairs to meet this German Maltese transplant. As if he stepped out of a European Vogue magazine, Jens with his bronze glow, stonewashed jeans, form fitting tee shirt and perfectly aligned hairstyle, greeted us with excitement and intensity. He handed us his remaining three rolls of film and as he stepped aside a rugged, just as tanned and exotic looking film crew made their way down the staircase. We were off to our first location.

Within two hours of our lost camera dilemma we were actually within minutes of capturing the very shots we needed. My heart raced as we acted like kids in a candy store, as we squeezed into two little cars heading out for a wild ride. Our first stop would be a panoramic shot of an old city that easily mimicked ancient Rome. Hopping in and out of the car, make that one shot, two shot, three..and more…we were in the center of a whirlwind that just kept twirling.

For the final shot, as dusk was setting in, we made it to an old Army fort where we stopped under an archway. The seven story fortified brick building was built at the bottom of a steep dirt road. It spanned 600 feet from corner to corner. It was worn and torn from years of battles and usage Our team drove to the bottom of the road and began to climb up the unstable concrete and wooden planks to get an Arial shot. As Richard called out for one more take, we heard the rustle of voices creeping out behind rusty steel doors. Within seconds a drunkard stumbled out of the doorway and summoned a motley crew of a hundred bandits after us.

My life flashed before my eyes. I wondered if I would see my wife and children again, or would I end up walking the plank and taking my last swan dive off a sheer cliff into the tepid waters of the Mediterranean Sea. It wasn’t the gangs of people with fire torched sticks hurling our way, but it was the bottle rockets and bullets that zoomed passed us and made it’s marks on the relic walls of this fortress. We ran breathlessly to our cars, yelling. “Go, go, go”, while the bandits got in their cars and chased us up the hill determined to hunt us down. We were thankful for all the dirt and smoke that camouflaged us as we were able to ward off the partygoers and make a clean getaway in the dark. I never complained about the dust and dirt again that night.

The icing on the cake for our trip to Malta occurred in the wee hours of the morning as I nodded off on Jens’ couch. As Richard reviewed Jens’ body of work on a show reel, he noticed that Jens had done a complete CGI model of Ancient Rome, exactly what we needed for our film. Through all the ups and downs of this trip, from the miracle of losing the camera, to almost getting shot, to meeting Jens, (who would come give his heart to the Lord, move to America and start a family of his own), we also got the shot we needed. All by forming a relationship with another man. This journey we are on is not all about getting the project completed, but it is about the people you meet along the way, with the hope and anticipation of loving them into God’s kingdom.

Oh, and yes we did get the camera back. It arrived in Malta on the very flight we were to depart on some 18 hours later.

Titus Watts was Grip team leader for the films “Guardians” and “The Roman Trilogy” and now, he and his wife, Angela, are team leaders of the finances for the film “Gravity.”

by Sunny Gazowsky

Andrew’s story begins with his father, Michael Gopaul. Michael got saved at the Voice of Pentecost Church at the age of 30. He soon began filming many of the church services and events such as weddings, camping trips, plays, etc. Before long, this hobby grew into a real love and passion for filming and he became very skilled behind the camera.

One day, God called Richard Gazowsky into the film industry to start a Christian film company called WYSIWYG. When Michael heard this, it was his dream come true and he became one of the founders of Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks. He was the head-cameraman and at many times, the only cameraman. Michael began to bring Andrew and his older brother, Michael Jr., to the sets and on location shoots to help him film. A love for cinematography started to grow in both of the Gopaul boys. At a young age, they had the opportunity to work next to their father on many occasions; life was perfect.

Suddenly, on September 12, 1996, when Andrew was only nine years old, his father had a stroke and was in a coma for 11 days. Within that time, they sent him to three different hospitals in three different cities. Everyone at WYSIWYG and the church started to fast and pray and help Andrew’s family as much as possible. When Michael came out of the coma, he needed to have surgery followed by physical therapy. For three months Andrew and his family worried about his father’s condition. Finally, they received a phone call from the doctor saying that Michael could come home; but the stroke had left him with the mind of a two year old child and he was also suffering from short-term memory loss.

Andrew’s mother, Susan, stayed at her teaching job for as long as she could but taking care of her husband and four young children was also a full-time job. Finally, she had to make the difficult decision to leave her job and give her family her full attention. Eventually, they lost their home and had to leave everything they had except for one bag of clothes for each of them. Another caring family in the church opened their home to this family of six in their time of need until they could find another place to stay. Over the next few years, the Gopaul family moved to five different locations. Just when it seemed that hope was lost, God provided Andrew’s family with a beautiful house with plenty of room for the entire family, a place that they could call home.

About this time, WYSIWYG started production of its first TV feature film and Andrew, by now in high school, began helping on the film crew after school hours. He loved being on set so much that it was all he could see himself doing for the rest of his life. The last two years of high school he had fewer classes so that meant more time during the day to work with the film crew at WYSIWYG. “It’s like working in Heaven,” Andrew said. “It is my description of the perfect job. I know why my dad loved it so much. I pray for my dad everyday and one day we will work together.”

Andrew is carrying on his father’s torch.

Sunny Gazowsky, the son of Richard and Sandy Gazowsky, is the team leader for stunts. He has done stunts for the Roman Trilogy and is currently preparing stunts for WYSIWYG’s next feature production. ‘Gravity’.

by Robert Castro

As I walked through a garbage dump, pushing aside some local neighbor’s personal trash, I knew that this could only be endured by having a vision.

At the beginning of 2008, Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks had been given a word from God to film and broadcast a television show and produce theatrical plays from our church’s sanctuary. Also, we have rock and roll style worship weekly. To do this, it would require a remodeling of the stage. That meant that someone had to demolish it. Included in this prophetic vision to remodel is the installation of a state-of-the-art Wave Field Synthesis surround-sound system which would consist of more than 300 speakers; along with the ability to broadcast the audio signal in 2.8 MHz sample rate DSD format to anywhere in the world. What this means in plain English is “It Rocks”.

Now that I had this vision planted in my soul, it was time to start the demolition. After several confirmations from the Lord, I had been commissioned by God and Pastor Gazowsky to lead the demolishing of a 30-year old three- story stage structure within our church. The first step was to sledge hammer sheetrock. This process took weeks to complete and it was a better workout than going to the gym. Then we filled a demolition garbage dumpster with the sheetrock. After a day of filling wheelbarrows with sheetrock, for some reason, I would continually blow black snot from my nose. I’m sure that many construction workers can relate to this. The next step was to pull down all the wooden beams that formed the three-story structure. This process took much patience in order to do it safely, but it was really cool to see big room structures come down by the pull of a rope.

Another huge dumpster was needed for the wood beams. One day, we were not able to complete filling the dumpster in a single workday. This meant that we would have to leave the dumpster overnight on a San Francisco street half full. Basically, this is an open invitation for the local neighbors to secretly throw their personal over-sized garbage into our dumpster for which we had paid hundreds of dollars. The next morning my co-worker, Sunny, and I arrived to work and noticed that an extremely large amount of personal trash had been loaded into our dumpster. Sunny and I immediately started rejoicing and thanking God for all his goodness. We spent 30 minutes pushing the wet, smelly, embarrassingly inappropriate trash aside to make room for ours. I am an audio engineer, not a construction worker or a carpenter. I realized the passionate vision of our church to broadcast in excellence was the joy set before me. It was the power that pushed me through to the finish line.

Robert Castro is a team leader in sound design for WYSIWYG. He has done sound design for “The Roman Trilogy” and has worked on the development of the Sarah DSD location recorder, and H. Ghost (WYSIWYG’s wave field synthesis theatrical sound system).